By Dale Budge
Clevedon Cricket Club will host neighbours Pohutukawa Coast tonight in what they hope to become an annual Friday night fixture with the community supporting the initiative.
Each club’s senior men’s side will play each other in a T20 fixture and there will be a game for some age group players as well and while the games are underway there will be a BBQ and refreshments.
Matt Strang is the captain of the Clevedon men’s side and he thinks what the club is doing tonight could be a glimpse into the future of the grade.
“First of all it is Friday night – a lot of us at the club have thought that Friday nights are an opportunity to play some cricket and enjoy the social side on a Friday after a busy week at work,” Strang told Counties Sports Hub.
“So we reached out to Pohutukawa Coast; they responded and were keen and a few weeks later we managed to put that together.
“We have a junior selection of sevens, eights and nines playing against each other and the old boys will take on the Pohutukawa Coast T20 team on the number one track, starting at 5pm.
“We have 40 cricketers turning up and on recent reports a lot of supporters and locals turning up as well.
“We have got some trophies and shields made and we have had four local businesses that have kindly donated food and cash donations.”
This is the second season that Clevedon has entered a team in the men’s T20 grade and the move has already proven a success.
“We had five or six wins on the trot last year and we were the team to beat there for a while,” Strang said. “The grade is really competitive and anyone can beat anyone on the day, which is enjoyable.
“You find every team probably has three or four guys who you can tell have played some pretty good cricket over the years. There are always a couple that have picked it up later in life and really enjoy it and it is also bloody good to see some people who maybe didn’t play much cricket at school and there is room for them as well.
“Everyone gets a bowl each week and a bat most weeks and there are also plenty of teenagers that seem to pop up on the team and it is nice to share that experience with kids coming through too. That was something I enjoyed as a grew up – learning off some of the older players.”
Clevedon Cricket Club’s beginnings trace back to the mid-late 1980s.
“I think it must have been about 1986-87 when we got things underway,” original club pioneer Martin Blampied told Counties Sports Hub.
“There was a group of parents that got together to make it happen. There was Jenny Gallaugher – they had a couple of boys playing; there were our boys and some of their mates.
“At that stage there was nothing in Clevedon – anyone wanting to play cricket in those days had to go into Papakura and become a member of the club there.
“We went through the various hoops, working with Counties Junior Cricket and got the thing started.
“We may have started with two teams.
“We needed to provide a home field. We used Bell Field up the road near Ardmore. There was an artificial pitch and it is still used today. That became our home ground.
“The Clevedon A&P grounds were too rough in those days.
“It grew from there – it might have been up to four teams by the time my boys moved on.”
Clevedon cricket has grown significantly since then with up to seven or eight age group teams prior to the COVID outbreak as well as a senior men’s team playing in the T20 grade.
Along the way there were some players that went on to higher honours having got their grounding at Clevedon.
“A couple of the Fitzgerald boys were stand outs – one played New Zealand U19 I believe.
“A few players made the U14 Counties team and maybe even we had a couple of Northern Districts players as well.”
And for Blampied the connection to the club has gone full circle and still exists today with his grandchildren playing age grade cricket at the club.
“The White boys are my grandkids. There are three of them playing which is nice.”
The Clevedon A&P Showgrounds are a picturesque place to play cricket and the place will be humming later today when the matches get underway.
With a hard-working and progressive committee, the future looks bright in Clevedon.
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